The present invention relates to automated bakery equipment, and more particularly to a device and a method for removing a carrier screen, which is carrying a bakery product and traveling on a moving conveyor system, from underneath the carried bakery product and transferring the bakery product to an exit conveyor during substantially continuous forward motion of the bakery product.
In a typical modern automated bakery, various conveyors are utilized to transport the bakery product from its unfinished state as dough to its finished state after baking, and after packaging. The design of such conveying means is well known.
Certain bakery products, such as pies and pastries, must be baked in their own individual baking trays, typically thin gauge aluminum foil which is sold to the consumer along with the product itself. Generally, these aluminum foil pans are too small and too weak to be conveniently handled by the conveying machinery by themselves. In order to provide for more efficient baking and safer handling in the conveying machinery during the baking process, the aluminum foil pans are commonly grouped together on a separate carrier screen, which is similar in construction and operation to an ordinary oven rack. By the use of a carrier screen, the more fragile bakery products, such as pies or pastries, may be evenly supported by the screen and thus less liable to damage during the baking process.
At the conclusion of the baking process, the bakery product in its aluminum foil container must be removed from the carrier screen and transported to another stage of the system, such as to packaging equipment. At this point, it is also generally desired to remove the carrier screen itself from the underlying conveyor and to transport the carrier screen separately from the bakery product to a separate part of the facility where it may be either refilled with bakery product and recycled, or stacked and stored if it is at the end of a bakery run.
Several means for accomplishing this removal of the bakery product and separation of the carrier screen from the main conveyor have been proposed. One of these, described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,324,326, dated Apr. 13, 1982, utilizes a specially designed flexible carrier screen that may be pulled down and around the termination pulley of the entrance conveyor while the bakery product continues past to an exit conveyor. The need for a flexible carrier screen may cause problems, however, since the continuous flexing and movement of the carrier screen presents the possibility of jamming.
In another proposal, described in U.S. Pat. No. 1,279,563, dated Sept. 24, 1918, the carrier screen with the bakery product on it is transported downwardly at a slant and the bakery products scraped off of the carrier screen with a spatula-like inclined plane. From there the bakery products slide to an exit conveyor. This arrangement may not be practical where the bakery products are themselves contained in their own aluminum foil pans, since the tilting of the carrier may cause the pans containing the bakery product to slide off and be damaged.
In another proposal, described in U.S. Pat. No. 1,672,522, dated June 5, 1928, flexible plaques are used to carry the bakery product, which can then be rolled around a pulley to discharge the bakery product onto an exit conveyor.